Kimberly Steele's Blog, page 19

Daily Vegan Lunch for 26 July, 2013: Cornbread Pancakes

INGREDIENTS:

1/4 cup flax seed meal plus 1/4 cup water

2.5 cups flour

3/4 cup cornmeal

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 tablespoon baking soda

1 teaspoon sea salt

2/3 cup sugar

2 tablespoons applesauce

1.5 cups non-dairy milk (I used flax milk)

1 tablespoon apple cider, white, or rice vinegar

1 cup corn kernels (I used frozen and thawed them first in the microwave)

2 tablespoons oil

Additional oil for frying

Mix flax seed meal with water in a small bowl, set aside.

Combine flour, corn meal, baking powder, baking soda, and sea salt in a large bowl and mix well.

Combine sugar, applesauce, non-dairy milk, vinegar, corn kernels, and 2 tablespoons oil in a smaller bowl. Stir well.

Dump wet sugar/applesauce mixture into the dry flour mixture when you are almost ready to cook the pancakes. What happens is the baking soda in the dry stuff reacts with the vinegar in the wet stuff to give it a chemical reaction not unlike that volcano thing kids make where the eruption combines baking soda and vinegar — what makes a little volcano for first grade also leavens your pancakes and makes them light and fluffy.

Add water or non-dairy milk 1/4 cup at a time if mixture is too dry. You want it to be pretty thick.

Oil a skillet and fry each pancake for about 2 minutes on the first side and 30 seconds for the other side. You want bubbles to appear in the pancakes before you flip them.

Daily Vegan Lunch for 25 July, 2013: Kim Chi Fried Rice

INGREDIENTS:

3 cups cabbage, shredded or chopped

1 tablespoon oil

2 cups cooked long grain rice, refrigerated 24 hours

1.5 cups chopped green onion

1 teaspoon dark sesame oil

1 tablespoon gochujang (Spicy Korean miso available in most Asian groceries)

1/4 cup soy sauce or to taste

DIRECTIONS:

Prepare all ingredients, including rice, and set them to the side of the stove so they are ready to go. Turn heat as high as it will go. Put oil in a large pan (not non-stick as the Teflon stuff becomes unstable and poisonous at high temps) until the oil smokes. Add cabbage to the pan — BE CAREFUL! The oil can spatter because it’s very hot. Stir for 30 seconds until it wilts and add refrigerated rice. You really have to use chilled rice because otherwise the rice turns gummy, sticky, and nasty. Stir the rice which will brown quickly, about 1 minute. Add green onion, soy sauce, sesame seed oil, and gochujang at once. Stir for one minute more to incorporate the gochujang and coat all the rice. Done!

Daily Vegan Lunch for 24 July, 2013: Cole Slaw

I had a peanut butter sandwich with my cole slaw, I didn’t want anyone to think coleslaw was all I ate for lunch!

INGREDIENTS:

8 cups shredded cabbage

1 large carrot, shredded or julienned

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1/4 cup sugar or 2 tablespoons agave nectar

1/3 cup vegan mayonnaise

Mix mustard with sugar and mayo in a small bowl. Combine with cabbage and carrot large bowl and mix extremely well. Chill for 2 hours plus. Lasts about 3 days in the fridge.

Daily Vegan Lunch for 23 July, 2013: Bacon Cheese Fries

July 23 was my birthday. Yes, I was a french fry vegan for one day. This was really tasty.

My awesome vegan cheese recipe is very low calorie and almost zero fat. The bacon cheese fries you see here contain zero cholesterol and the whole thing clocks in at only 350 calories and 7 grams of fat! Yay!

The same plateful of bacon cheese fries from Steak & Shake is 950 calories and 54 sad grams of fat.

INGREDIENTS:

3 cups of frozen steak fries

2 teaspoons oil

1 cup Oat Cheese from Best Ever Vegan Nachos

1 tablespoon veggie baco bits

1 green onion, chopped

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Put the fries in a casserole dish or on a cookie sheet. Hand toss frozen fries in oil until they are lightly coated on all sides. Alternately, coat fries with less or no oil at all if you want even less fat.

Bake fries 10 minutes, then toss them with a spatula and cook for 10 minutes more.

Coat fries with slightly warm cheese sauce and top with baco bits and green onion. DELICIOUS! Happy Birthday to me!!

Daily Vegan Lunch for 22 July, 2013: Tteokbokki, Korean Rice Cake Stew

This stew reminds me of Campbell’s Tomato Soup in a weird way. It’s sweet, hearty, and thick, definitely comfort food. My Korean friend Kimie Kim suggests putting ramen noodles or cabbage in it. I used cabbage.

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups shiitake mushrooms, soaked in water

6 cups water

1 veggie broth cube or 2 teaspoons Better Than Bouillon

2 tablespoons gochujang (spicy soybean paste sold in Korean grocery stores)

1/4 cup sugar or to taste

1 tablespoon rice vinegar or apple cider vinegar

1 pound tteok (Korean rice cakes/mochi sold in the refrigerator section of Korean grocery stores, any shape)

1.5 cups chopped green onion

3 – 5 cups white cabbage (it will cook down)

3 green onions, minced

2 teaspoons sesame oil or to taste

Salt to taste

Soak mushrooms for 10 minutes or longer, reserve the liquid. Add the mushrooms and bouillon cube or paste and the mushroom water to a pot of 6 cups of water and bring to a near boil and then turn down the heat to medium-high so it still boils but not robustly. Add sugar, rice vinegar, and gochujang. Taste test the broth and add salt or gochujang to taste. Add the Korean rice cakes and cook them for 15 minutes or until the rice cake is yummy, soft, and chewy, about the texture of a giant al dente noodle. Turn heat down to low and add cabbage and/or ramen noodles. Stir the cabbage until wilted or the ramen until just softened. Add green onion and sesame oil and serve immediately.

Daily Vegan Lunch for 21 July, 2013: Pineapple Yuba Fried Rice

Delicious. I wish Chinese restaurants served this but they are too obsessed with putting eggs and/or fish in everything.

INGREDIENTS:

1 tablespoon oil

1 cup crumbled yuba, soaked 5 minutes and drained extremely well (substitute tofu or veggie meat) optional

1.5 cups cooked long grain rice, chilled in the refrigerator at least 5 hours

1 cup chopped pineapple, I used canned

1/2 cup carrot, julienned

3/4 cup green onion, chopped

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 teaspoon sesame oil

Prepare all ingredients by chopping/julienning/soaking. Usually this takes longer than cooking them! Set all of your ingredients near the stove.

The rice must be cold and not hot because cold rice is much denser and sturdier than fresh cooked rice. Rice actually undergoes a molecular change when it is chilled where the rice becomes harder. The change is not great if you’re refrigerating the rice from last night’s takeout, but perfect if you’re going to fry the rice at a high temperature like we are going to. I would not recommend brown rice for fried rice, I have tried it and it just isn’t great, however, basmati or jasmine rice are just fine. I use the cheapest organic long grain rice I can find in the bulk section.

Heat a medium to large sized pan to very high heat. You DO NOT want to use Teflon or non-stick pans because the stuff becomes toxic and leaches into food when you cook at very high heat. Add the oil to pan and wait until it smokes. Drain the yuba, squeezing out the water through a sieve. You want it reconstituted but very dry so it does not splatter oil on you because of the sizzling water. Add yuba to the pan and quickly stir fry it for 30 seconds, sealing in the flavor. Add the rice.

Toss the rice around. At this high temperature, it will sizzle. Keep tossing for another minute and break up any clumps with your wooden spoon or spatula. Add the pineapple, carrot, and onion all at once. Toss them around for a minute, distributing them in the rice.

Finish by incorporating the soy sauce and sesame oil, stir around for 30 seconds, then take it off the heat. Done!

Daily Vegan Lunch for July 20, 2013: Kale Chips and Roasted Chickpeas

Today I didn’t include a recipe for lunch, just two easy snacks I really like that go well with soups and sandwiches.

KALE CHIPS INGREDIENTS:

7 cups curly kale, washed

1 teaspoon coarse salt

1.5 tablespoons oil

2 tablespoons nutritional yeast

parchment paper for baking

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Wash the kale well and drain, then transfer it to a cutting board. Cut out the stems and rip the kale into large pieces, they will shrink a bit in the oven. Put the kale pieces in a large bowl. Toss the kale gently with the oil and salt using your hands until salt and oil are evenly distributed throughout. Add the nutritional yeast and stir in using a spoon so it coats the leaves.

Spread a cookie sheet with parchment paper. It is very important you use parchment paper because otherwise kale will stick mercilessly to your baking sheet, trust me, I’ve been there and done that.

Lay kale leaves on the parchment-lined cookie sheet, evenly distributing them. Bake at 350 for 30 – 40 minutes until the leaves are crunchy.

ROASTED CHICKPEAS:

1 can chickpeas (13.5 ounces), rinsed and drained

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon cumin

1 teaspoon smoked paprika

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix olive oil, salt, cumin, and paprika in a small bowl. Lay the chickpeas on a rimmed cookie sheet, no parchment necessary. Pour the spiced oil over them and toss them around the cookie sheet to coat. If your cookie sheet has no edges, just put the chickpeas and oil in a bowl and toss them. Bake for 20 minutes at 400 degrees. Take the chickpeas out and turn them over with a spatula. Cook for another 10 – 20 minutes, until chickpeas are crunchy.

Daily Vegan Lunch for 19 July, 2013: Mushroom Carrot Bisque

INGREDIENTS:

1.5 cups shiitake mushrooms, soaked in 2 cups water (save soaking water)

1 cup carrots cooked in 1.5 cups water (save cooking water)

1 Tablespoon oil

1 cup onion, chopped

2 cups maitake, cremini, or button mushrooms, chopped

1/4 teaspoon thyme

1 teaspoon salt

About 1 – 2 cups additional water

2 tablespoons vegan sour cream, optional

DIRECTIONS:

Soak shiitake mushrooms from 10 minutes up to overnight in water. I like dried shiitakes more because I tend to think they are more flavorful, however if you use fresh shiitakes that obviously don’t require soaking, just be ready to add about 1 cup additional water and an extra pinch of salt or some veggie bouillon. Boil carrots in the microwave for 4 minutes and 30 seconds or on the stovetop in water for about eight minutes. In a large pan, fry the onions and maitake or other mushrooms on medium high heat in the oil until they are browned, about five minutes. Stir them frequently. Add shiitakes with their soaking water to the pan. Add carrots, cooking water and all to the pan. Add salt.

Transfer the mixture to a blender. Add 1 – 2 cups of additional water depending on how thick you like your bisque. Blend until pureed, adding water if it is too thick. Remember you are going for soup.

Reheat soup if necessary before serving in a pot or in the microwave. I found it was hot enough straight out of the blender because mushrooms retain their heat.

Stir in vegan sour cream if desired before serving.

Daily Vegan Lunch for 18 July, 2013: Jerk Black Lentil Soup

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 cup black lentils, washed and picked over

2 cups water

1 cup onion

2 teaspoons oil

2 legs celery, chopped

1 teaspoon Jamaican jerk seasoning (if unavailable, use 1/2 a teaspoon of thyme and 1/2 teaspoon allspice)

1 vegetable broth cube or 2 teaspoons salt

1/2 cup chopped sweet red bell pepper or green pepper

3 more cups water

DIRECTIONS:

Cook the lentils in water in an uncovered in a pot on the stove by bringing them to a boil and then turning heat to medium, stirring them infrequently and watching for when they become dry, if they do, add more water.

In a separate pan, fry the onion in oil on medium-high heat until it is translucent. Add celery, bell pepper, and jerk seasoning. I like to make a well in the center of the veggies, deposit the seasoning there, and add a few drops of oil to fry them.

After about 20 minutes of cooking the lentils, taste test them. Add water 1 cup at a time and cook longer if necessary until they are tender. Add 3 cups of water to the lentils and the broth cube and salt. Scoop the celery/bell pepper/jerk seasoning mixture into the soupy lentils. Stir well and heat through.

Daily Vegan Lunch for 17 July, 2013: Jalapeño Risotto

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup chopped onion

1/2 cup jalapeno peppers (I used some from a jar) chopped

1 tablespoon oil

1 and 1/4 cups arborio rice

1/2 cup sweet red bell pepper

1/2 teaspoon turmeric

2 Tablespoons nutritional yeast

1/2 teaspoon cumin

1/2 teaspoon chili powder

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder OR

1.5 teaspoons taco seasoning

1 vegetable broth cube or 2 teaspoons salt

At least 7 cups of water

DIRECTIONS:

Fry onion the bottom of a medium-sized pot in oil on medium high heat. After about 1 minute, add the rice and let it fry with the onion for 2 minutes more, stirring it frequently. Add 2 cups of water and turn the heat to medium-low, stir. Allow the rice to sit and absorb the water as the pot heats up again. Once the rice absorbs the water, add the broth or salt. Continue to add water cup by cup, stirring gently when you add it. When you’ve reached about the sixth cup of water, add the red bell pepper, cumin/chili/garlic powder or taco seasoning, and the jalapeños. Stir, mixing them through. Taste test the rice, it should be getting soft by now. Keep adding water until the rice is gravy-ish, saucy, and tender. Add nutritional yeast and turmeric, stir well and serve.